Gulf Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, today hosted media members on an exclusive tour of its newly retrofitted Airbus A330 aircraft – upgraded with fully-flat bed seats in the airline’s Falcon Gold Class, revamped seats in Economy Class and a state-of-the-art in-flight-entertainment system throughout.
Designed specifically for Gulf Air and integrating various elements of passengers’ feedback, the retrofit was launched on 4 Airbus A330s in the first quarter of 2014, with three key partners: Avianor, Zodiac Aerospace and BEAerospace. Newly configured for a total of 214 seats in a two-class configuration of 30 Falcon Gold Class seats and 184 Economy seats,the retrofit delivers significant enhancements across both cabins.
For premium passengers, the new 22-inch wide Falcon Gold Class seats convert into fully-flat beds measuring 1.90 meters in length and come equipped with an in-seat massage facility, privacy dividers, fully adjustable armrests andsignificant storage space. The new Economy Class seats offer passengers the latest in comfort and technology with a greater recline to compliment an 18-inch seat-width and an adjustable head and foot rest to expand leg space.
For optimum onboard entertainment, all seats in Gulf Air’s upgraded A330 aircraft include an integrated Audio-Video on Demand (AVOD) feature, an individual touch screen (15-inch in Falcon Gold class and 9-inch in Economy) in every seat and high quality, noise-cancelling headphones. A suite of movies, video and audio titles in several languages are on offer, in addition to games.
Speaking to media during the tour, Gulf Air A/Chief Executive Officer Mr. Maher Salman Al Musallam said: "This successful retrofit represents the fruits of Gulf Air’s ambitious and comprehensive product enhancement strategythat is geared towardsenhancing and improving our product in a way that will deliver positive impact to our passengers, while ensuring consistency in our product standard across our fleet.Fitting this upgraded equipment to our A330 fleet enhances the onboard experience while reflecting our ongoing commitment to our long-haul operations. I look forward to receiving our valued passengers’ feedback!"
The newly retrofitted aircrafts will mainly service Gulf Air’s London Heathrow T4 and Bangkok routes which are served with nonstop twice daily and 06 weekly flights respectively. Gulf Air currently operates an all-Airbus fleet with 28 modern aircraft that hold a combined average age of 6 years. The airline’s meld of wide and narrow body aircraftsenable Bahrain’s national carrier to meet demand for its extensive regional network and strategic long-haul routes.